Coventry Telegraph Letters: Bike helmets devised on a false premise

REGARDING the controversy over wearing cycle helmets; the helmet was devised under the mistaken impression that cycling casualties occur from “just falling off” and suffering a 12mph head impact with the road surface.

REGARDING the controversy over wearing cycle helmets; the helmet was devised under the mistaken impression that cycling casualties occur from “just falling off” and suffering a 12mph head impact with the road surface.

This is rarely the case – 90 per cent of serious injuries occur from collisions with motor vehicles and, in these cases, the EN1078 helmet cannot cope.

Helmets for cycling is similar to wearing trousers rather than shorts for walking – if you stumble you are less likely to get a bloody knee but if you fall down a ravine it won’t prevent a broken leg.

The “a helmet is probably better than nothing” argument applies just as much to pedestrians (500 deaths annually, a higher percentage of head injuries than for cyclists) and motorists (1200 deaths annually – head impacts are the only injury singled out in the Second Review of the Government’s Road Safety Strategy).

Even falling down stairs has a higher tally of head injuries than cycling.

But while well-meaning souls are welcomed into primary schools to smash eggs on the floor and tell scared children “That’s your head if you don’t wear a helmet when cycling”, there’s no mention that for every child who dies in hospital of brain trauma from cycling, three die from brain trauma in car crashes, and five die from accidents when walking.

By falsely asserting that cycling is much more dangerous than other activities (because they don’t require a helmet) we discourage it – compulsory helmets in Australia cut cycling levels by 40 per cent at a stroke.